


Déjà vu

by absolutelyCancerous (cal1brations)



Category: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cal1brations/pseuds/absolutelyCancerous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t <i>want</i> to love him, he never planned on it to begin with; but love is a stupid, hellish thing, a force that always seems to tangle itself in all the wrong places at all the wrong times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Déjà vu

He’s  _supposed_  to be making deliveries.

He’s supposed to be doing his job, knocking on doors and offering packages and cases and crates, asking where they need to be put and if the buyer could please sign on this line and initial here? He’s supposed to be doing these things because he’s  _him_ , he’s Cloud Strife.

Cloud Strife, the delivery boy.

Cloud Strife, the cadet, the  _infantryman_ , and nothing more.

But he’s not doing his job, not like he’s supposed to. It’s like the bike won’t even listen to him, won’t follow his command to go right and heads straight instead, speeds up almost entirely on its own as he leaves the city limits, goes to a place he remembers like a dancer through her veiled curtain—enough to remember what occurred, but nothing in detail, nothing that isn’t shadowed and warped in one way or another.

It’s not a normal thing, it’s not like he just randomly up and decides he’s got something more important than dropping off a package to so-and-so up in the places where the streets don’t have mud and slime on them, and where the houses and buildings aren’t warped-in, ruined and rusted. He likes delivering, likes doing something that keeps his mind focused and in order: first trip, Sector 4: deliveries for five, second trip, Sector 3: deliveries for two, and so on.

The schedule of his job doesn’t give him much time to think, and that’s good. Because thinking, often in Cloud’s case, means remembering.

Nothing good comes of that.

He arrives. It feels mechanic, shutting down the bike and stepping off, nothing out the norm there. His feet step quietly in the dust; this is a path he’s walked (shuffled, panting and screaming and sobbing) before, although there aren’t footprints here, no worn paths, not anything.

Except the rusted, weathered and beyond-repair sword—the one that belonged to a real SOLDIER—the weapon that was entrusted to Cloud when he was forced to take on the duty of a living legacy for, someone who’s face he can only remember in spurts, if he’s  _lucky_.

A shock jolts through him, a painful feeling that’s slowly becoming more and more familiar, and leaves him remembering, vivid things that don’t deserve to be at the front of his mind. A grinning face, words that left his cheeks burning, devotion that was too real to ever be forgotten.

A friend. An idol. A something-more-than-that.

Zack.

Cloud cringes and shoves a bit of hair behind his ear, forcibly clearing his throat with squinted eyes. He pretends it’s the sun getting to him, and not the burning of tears that rips at the back of his throat.

He also pretends he does not remember the risqué acts, the late night talks, and the thousands of personal bits Cloud knows of the hero no longer living. Whispers of confessions, of his love for so many, (including Cloud himself) and admissions that never saw the light of day. Everything Zack had uttered, all the secrets and stories, Cloud kept to himself, close to his heart, safe and sound.

They hurt, now. They ache,  _literally_ , and it makes Cloud wince at the feeling, makes him dig his fingers into the cloth of his pants, makes him grit his teeth as he feels degraded in front of  _nobody_ , as the first bout of tears spill down his cheeks. His throat clenches so tight, he ends up whimpering, anyway.

He doesn’t  _want_  to love him, he never planned on it to  _begin_  with; but love is a stupid, hellish thing, a force that always seems to tangle itself in all the wrong places at all the wrong times.

He tells himself to stop, that this is a ridiculous reason to have skipped out on work—he could have been done with his delivery by now—if it was only to spite himself, to hurt his psyche and leave him bawling like a child. Alas, he can’t stop his vision from blurring over with tears, and only covers his face to hide his despair from absolutely no one.

“Stop,” he mumbles into his hands, though he doesn’t quite know if he means to stop crying or a statement to his heart to stop loving people who aren’t living.

Cloud generally has no problem being alone; he doesn’t like crowds, hell, he gets uncomfortable if there’s more than one person coming to answer the door when he’s making a delivery. But it  _matters_  now, if only now, because bright-eyed, always-grinning Zack was his  _friend_ , his first legitimate friend. He was there, and he was a lot of firsts, if not only in his work, certainly to Cloud.

“Stop it.” He says it louder this time, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. But he just keeps remembering, and it hurts, it hurts more than he remembers this hurting.

“I don’t,” he croaks, and it doesn’t matter how stupid he looks now, because he  _has_  to speak, to get it all off his chest, “I don’t want to be like…  _this_  anymore—I don’t want to  _hurt_  anymore.”

Once he starts talking, it’s damn-near impossible for him to stop.

“I try to stop feeling so…  _bad_ , but then you—you never  _leave_. It’s like trying to run away from your own shadow.” He pauses, because he realizes how stupid he  _doesn’t_  feel, blurting out bottled-up thoughts into nothing but the open air, which he  _swears_  still faintly smells like metal and tears.

The wind slaps his cheeks, cold and unforgiving, and Cloud shivers.

“Sorry.” Is mostly what he can think to say at this point in time. “Zack.” He adds, for definition.

The wind whips at him again, makes his spikes tremble and his clothes ruffle in the chill. For a second, Cloud swears he can feel a hand squeezing the back of his neck when a gust smacks his collar up against the back of his neck. He can almost hear the usual laugh that accompanies it, the whoop of  _you don’t gotta be tense all the time, Spike!_  and the small smile creep onto his face.

But there’s nothing but him and the wind and his memories, and Cloud thinks that maybe, he’ll figure out how to live with it. Someday.

He shuffles back to Fenrir, makes to pretend that nothing happened, starts making up mediocre excuses, just in case. The riding goggles snap into place, he fingers the throttle. The bike roars to life under him, and usually this is when he’d kick off, take off and  _forget_  everything, go back to being a silent delivery boy.

Instead, the wind whips again, in gusts that seem almost on-purpose. Cloud tries to brush it off, tries to leave, but he remembers again, remember when movement always made him sick, remembers a hand on his back and another holding him up from his sick, a boy only-slightly older who seemed to have hundreds of years of wisdom under his belt.

And he loved Cloud. And Cloud, good  _god_ , did he love him.

Still does.

At least he can admit that much, swallowing back the words that feel like lead on his tongue. Words involving love and just how much he feels for the sky-eyed fighter that he owes so, so many apologies to.

The bike roars, and Cloud only thinks of rain falling short against a flat metal blade, hot liquid on his cheek and plastering his hair to his cheek that  _isn’t_  tears.

He kicks off, leaves, and tries to forget.

Years later, and Cloud has never actually completed that last step.


End file.
